‘No Ordinary Family’ Leads Genre Week

Genre television has been looking for something that will help give it a boost on network television. And it seems all that was needed was a page from Syfy’s grounded comedy book.

Taking the lead from popular shows like “Eureka” and “Warehouse 13,” ABC premiered “No Ordinary Family” starring “The Shield” alum Michael Chiklis and former “Dexter” star Julie Benz, taking control of sci-fi programming for the week, allowing it to improve almost 10 percent over audiences from last year.

“No Ordinary Family” earned a 6.3 rating/10 share in Fast National overnight ratings from The Nielsen Co. this week, leading a strong field that included a decent second week for NBC’s “The Event” and steady numbers from other offerings like “Fringe” on Fox as well as the trio of genre programs on The CW.

The show led into a mixed night for ABC Tuesday that continued with “Dancing With the Stars” as well as freshman drama “Detroit 1-8-7,” both of which stumbled a bit from their opening weeks. “Family,” however, finished ahead of only “The Biggest Loser” on NBC and “One Tree Hill” on The CW for its timeslot, getting beat from tough competition by “NCIS” on CBS (11.3/18) and “Glee” on Fox (7.6/12). Although “NCIS” was down slightly from its premiere week, “Glee” — powered by Britney Spears — jumped more than 10 percent, creating a tough timeslot competition for “Family.”

“The Event” slipped 22 percent from its series premiere, but was NBC’s third highest-rated program last week behind “Law & Order: Los Angeles” (6.7/12) and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (5.9/10). It’s also building on its “Chuck” lead-in by 66 percent.

The show, starring Jason Ritter, Laura Innes and Blair Underwood, has doubled the audience NBC received in the same timeslot last year, meaning it should be sticking around for a while.

“Vampire Diaries,” “Supernatural” and “Smallville” all slipped from the previous week for The CW.

Fast Nationals usually provide a snapshot of what Americans are watching by pulling numbers from the top urban markets that include both live viewing and same-day timeshifted viewing. A rating point generally represents more than 1.1 million households while the share indicates the percentage of televisions turned on that was tuned to the specific program. These numbers typically shift when final ratings are issued.

Data collected from The Nielsen Co., as distributed by Zap2it. BlipNetwork tracks non-news, non-event programming, and figures for this story reflect airing of new episodes only. For more information on the Audience Loyalty Index, click here.